A Bear In His Natural Habitat: A Toyota Sedan

A Colorado family was approached by the police early yesterday morning because of reports that their car had been lying off the road in some trees with the horn honking for forty five minutes. As it turns out, it had been stolen. By a bear (not pictured above).

The pieces were put together by police and the parents of the car’s 17-year-old owner.

“So this bear opened the door on his own. Somehow the door closed behind him. He panicked and started thrashing around, hit the shifter and put the car, took it out of park,” Ralph said. “It rolled back, down over the hill, and down into here, and stopped. The four way flashers were on. It’s like he knew what was going on, and kept hitting the horn.”

“When the cop came up to the car, he thought it was a bunch of kids goofing around. He put a flashlight on it. And he saw this bear turn around, in the driver’s seat, and he turned around and looked at him. And when the cop saw that he said he never ran so fast in his life.”

Sheriff’s deputies wound up tying a rope to the handle of the car door in order to open it from afar, and eventually, two-and-a-half hours after they arrived, the bear wandered off into the woods.

The car’s owner said he left a sandwich in the car with the doors unlocked, so that is likely what attracted the ursine visitor. Unfortunately, in addition to shredding the upholstery, the bear both consumed the sandwich, and, uh… left it behind.

But that’s what happens to bears when they don’t have the calming influence of a frog in their lives. Also, when they learn to drive through a correspondence course.